What Teachers Need To Hear From Administrators At The End Of The School Year

“You all have made it to the end of another school year, and I want you to know: I have seen your sacrifices.

I have not seen all of your sacrifices, but I have seen some of them.

I have not seen all of your sacrifices because you are virtuous men and women, which means you do not make a show of your good works. You have been insulted by parents and said nothing about it. You have been insulted by students and said nothing about it. You have been insulted by one another and said nothing about it. You have even been insulted by me and said nothing about it.

You have been insulted so many times that you have quit keeping count. In the beginning, you complained, but the insults kept coming, your complaints got you nowhere, and now you have humbly accepted that such insults are simply part of your job. You receive praise, too, of course, but praise doesn’t keep you up at night. But you have lost much sleep thinking about the ways you have been slighted, and you have come to work the following day tired and dejected. For all the sleep you have lost worrying about your students, praying for your students, or grinding your diamond frustrations into dust, thank you. I cannot repay you, but the Lord will recompense you with rest in Glory.

You have worked hard while at school and continued working hard when you got home. You have spent money on your students just to bless them and not asked for reimbursement. You have spent time preparing gifts, food, and needlessly extravagant lessons for your students. You have labored diligently when you could have phoned it in. For this, I thank you.

Let me speak honestly: there are many people who are necessary in order for this school to run smoothly, and a school is definitely a team, but it is you—the teachers—who actually make classical Christian education happen. You are what make it possible for this school to call itself a classical Christian school. The buck stops with you. If the building is classical, the handbook is classical, the curriculum is classical, the ads are classical, and the uniforms are classical, but the teachers aren’t, then the school isn’t giving anyone a classical education. Everything else is expendable. Plato’s Academy didn’t have any of those things. The Lord didn’t have any of those things during His earthly ministry. You, the teachers, are this school’s most precious and vital asset.

Of course, every school’s teachers are its most vital asset, but you are precious to me also because you are good at what you do. This is not simply a safe school or a prestigious school. This is a good school because you are good teachers. I have been in your classrooms, I have seen your work, I have listened to you all describe what you do and why you do it, and I am immensely proud to work beside you. Classical schools are opening up all over the country and it is by no means easy for a school like this one to acquire good teachers. You are a rarity. It is easy to acquire teachers, it is quite hard to acquire good teachers. So, knowing that you all could go elsewhere and make more money, I thank you for teaching here.

The end of the year is often attended with mixed feelings: relief, sorrow, joy, disappointment. Some of you have seen your students grow intellectually and spiritually over the last nine months. Some of you have seen the opposite. You have seen students who did well last year begin to falter. You have seen students you care about form destructive friendships and give themselves over to the world. Some of you have seen things get better, some have seen things get worse. For those of you who have seen things get worse, you sometimes feel guilt, sometimes confusion. Why did none of your lessons avail on stony hearts?

While I am grateful for your efforts this year, we all have to remember that teachers must play the long game. We do indeed want our students to be faithful to God today, but we have an even greater desire that they be faithful to God for the rest of their lives. Modern Christians often want to believe that spiritual growth is a rational process wherein quantifiable input produces quantifiable output, but St. Paul says: “I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that plants any thing, neither he that waters; but God that gives the increase. Now he that plants and he that waters are one: and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labor.” If it were up to us to decide when the increase was given, we would take it now. But God is patient and longsuffering and he knows better than we do. He knows when to bring things to fruition.

So keep planting. Keep watering. And wait for God to give the increase. Trust the Lord’s promise to reward you according to your labor and give thanks that God has given you such noble work to do. It is indeed noble work. What we are doing is right. Do not judge your success by numbers, but by the strength of your own zeal. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might. And you have.”

This essay originally appeared on The CiRCE Institute blog.